LAMB, LAFAYETTE 1846 – 1917

LAMB, BEVIER, HUFFMAN, CARPENTER, YOUNG

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 6/18/2011 at 21:09:33

The Clinton Advertiser, Thursday, May 31, 1917
PIONEER LUMBERMAN DIES AT HIS HOME IN CLINTON.
LAFAYETTE LAMB ANSWERS THE FINAL SUMMONS.
Deceased Was Prominently Identified for Many Years With Development of Middle West.
Lafayette Lamb, pioneer Iowa lumberman and one of Iowa’s most widely known and highly respected citizens, died at 5:45 o’clock Wednesday evening at his home, 317 Seventh avenue. Mr. Lamb had been ailing for years, but his death was sudden and unexpected. He returned on May 17th from California, where he had spent a portion of the winter, and though he had not been well of recent weeks, he was not thought to be in danger of death. The intelligence of his demise Wednesday evening brought grief to hundreds of friends in Clinton and other cities.
The funeral will be held at 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon from the residence on Seventh avenue, Rev. H. J. Rendall, pastor of the First Presbyterian church officiating.
Was Aged 71.
Mr. Lamb was the fourth child and second son of Chancy and Jane (Bevier) Lamb, and was born Feb. 26, 1846, in Carroll county, Illinois, sixteen miles from Clinton. When he was five years old his father moved to Williamsport, Pa., where the family remained one year and then went to Big Flats, Chemung county, New York, the father there superintending the milling operations of J. C. Cameron & Co. In those days traveling was a hardship and the migration from Illinois to the Keystone state was made by going down the Mississippi river to Cairo, from there to Pittsburgh by water, and then to Harrisburg, going over the mountains by stage, traveling part of the way by canal and a short distance by railroad. The child was a pupil in the public schools of Big Flats and practically all of his elementary training was obtained there.
When Lafayette Lamb was ten years old, his father moved the family to Fulton, Ill., and in the following year, 1857, established a home in Clinton, which from that time on was the permanent residence of the Lambs. The head of the family bought a small sawmill and lumber yard in the town, and Lafayette, though only a boy, was called upon to assist in the operation of the mill. His task was to raise the logs upon a rotary carriage as they were hauled into the mill, the work in that day being carried on with a lever. The lad’s schooling was of necessity restricted, and it was only when the river froze and the mill ceased operations that he went to a school, returning to the mill when the sawing could be done. Upon the plant being enlarged and a shingle mill being added, Mr. Lamb made shingles for his father for five years. His first experience in the lumber yard was in 1862 when he started tallying, and after a year spent in familiarizing himself with the grades, he became a retail salesman for his father.
From 1862 to about 1864 the elder Lamb was also engaged in the grist mill business, in which Lafayette assisted him. The money stringencies during the Civil war compelled the lumber manufacturers to trade lumber for whatever the farmer raised that was marketable, and the project of the Lambs’ sawmill was given in exchange for grain, which was ground in the grist mill and sold at wholesale to retailers. Shortly after his experience in the retail yard, Lafayette Lamb had charge of the grist mill and continued in that capacity until the mill was sold and a sawmill built on its site.
A Foreman at 22.
So varied and thorough had been his training that Mr. Lamb when twenty-two years old was made foreman under S. B. Gardiner for C. Lamb & Son, his eldest brother, Artemus having been admitted to the firm in 1864. In 1872, he took charge of the logging when the first steamboat ever employed on the Mississippi for towing log rafts was put into service. This vessel was the “James Means,” and was the forerunner of a valuable fleet of steamboats operated by the firm. For ten years Lafayette supervised this branch of the business, although when his father and brother were at times he had general charge of the firm’s affairs. He became a member of the firm of C. Lamb & Sons n 1874, and when the business was incorporated four years later he was made vice president of the company.
Beginning with 1882 Mr. Lamb, though still retaining charge of the river operations, gave more of his attention to the general details of the lumber business here, taking his father’s place in its management as far as practicable. One by one, the four big sawmills of C. Lamb & Sons were closed down as the supply of white pine timber diminished, the last mill going out of commission on Oct. 26, 1904. During the forty-odd years Mr. Lamb and his sons carried on business, approximately three billion feet of white pine lumber was sawed, besides a vast volume of pickets, shingles and lath.
The closing of the last Lamb mill at Clinton did not end the business career of this great family in the valley of the Mississippi. Chancy Lamb the founder of the house, died July 12, 1897, and Artemus Lamb, the elder son, died April 23, 1901 from injuries received in a railroad wreck in Wyoming.
Mr. Lamb married Olivia T. Huffman of Clinton, Aug. 21, 1866. To them were born two children, Merette, wife of Eugene J. Carpenter, of Carpenter-Lamb company, of Minneapolis, Minn., and Chancy R. Lamb, of Minneapolis, who is the active factor in the Bacon-Nolan Hardwood company of Chancy, Miss.
Mr. Lamb became a Mason in 1870, in Emulation lodge No. 255. He was a member of Keystone Chapter and received the Scottish Rite degrees in 1871. Five years later he took the balance of the York Rite degrees in Holy Cross Commandery No. 10, of Clinton. Mr. Lamb had been a member of the Mystic Shrine, Knights of Pythias and the Elks. In politics he was a Republican, but never has taken a leading part in the deliberations of the party. He was a Presbyterian and gave liberally to the church, and was a member of the Wapsipinicon and Country clubs.
Mr. Lamb built a beautiful home in Clinton, where he and his wife entertained most generously. He spent much of his leisure time in company with his friends, cruising up and down the Mississippi river in his palatial houseboat, “Idler,” which was towed by his steamer, “Wanderer.” Like other members of this prominent family, Mr. Lamb was popular with a wide circle of friends in all walks of life.
His Business Association.
For many years Mr. Lamb was president and treasurer of C. Lamb & Sons of this city. He had been president of the Shell Lake Lumber company, Shell Lake, Wis.; the Barronett Lumber company, Barronett, Wis.; the Lamb-Davis Lumber company, Leavenworth, Wash.; the Lamb Hardwood Lumber company, Memphis, Tenn.; the Bacon-Nolan Hardwood company, Chancy, Miss.; vice president of the Mississippi Lumber company, Clinton; American Wire Cloth company, Clinton; Mississippi River Logging company, Clinton; the Clinton Sand & Gravel company, Clinton; a trustee of the Weyerhaeuser Timber company, Tacoma, Wash.; a director in the Carpenter-Lamb company, Minneapolis, Minn.; the Chippewa Lumber & Boom company, Chippewa Falls, Wis.; the White River Lumber company, Mason, Wis.; the McCloud River Lumber company, San Francisco, Cal.; the People’s Trust & Savings bank, Clinton National bank, City National bank, Merchants’ National bank, Clinton Mineral & Mining company and the Lafayette Hotel company, all of Clinton; a stockholder in the Northern Lumber company, Cloquet, Minn.; Boulevard Hotel company, St. Louis, Mo. And the Tampa Hotel company, Tampa, Fla. He has a one third interest in one of the largest ranches in Colorado, known as the Studebaker-Lamb—Witmer ranch, nine miles east of Greely, and fifty miles from Denver, including 14,000 acres and controlling eleven miles of riparian rights on the Platte River.
Surviving Mr. Lamb are a son and daughter, Chancy R. Lamb, of New York and Mrs. E. J. Carpenter of Minneapolis; a sister, Mrs. W. E. Young of this city, two granddaughters, and two great-granddaughters, besides several nephews and nieces.
The death of Mr. Lamb, for so many years identified with the business interests of Clinton and the middle west, and one of Clinton’s most public-spirited citizens, brings deep regret to his many friends in the Mississippi Valley, and elsewhere throughout the country.